Shoulder the Sky by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

the incident, and Joseph already felt the sick fear that Corliss was guilty. People had different breaking points. A good commander could tell when it was coming. Sam had seen it and had tried to protect him. It was himself Corliss had hurt, no one else. He had not left his post, or fallen asleep, or allowed anyone else to take the blame. It was one of those cases where turning a blind eye would possibly have saved him, given him time to recover at least his self-esteem, the control to build something out of what was left. Prentice had no idea what any of the men faced, let alone sappers. Joseph should have found a way to prevent this.
    He went back and talked with Marie O'Day. She was furious with Prentice, but she could not help. Then he spent a couple of hours talking to the other men, every so often going back to Corliss and simply sitting beside him.
    They could all hear the bombardment. The heavy artillery seemed to have a very good range tonight. The walls shivered and the lights swayed, casting wavering shadows on the walls. About ten o'clock the first casualties came in: some with broken arms and legs, a man with a deep shrapnel wound in the chest, another with a foot blown off. The surgeons operated in desperate haste. The smell of blood filled the air. Everybody seemed to be splashed and stained with red.
    The night stretched on. The noise of the artillery stopped and started, stopped and started. Prentice was somewhere around. Joseph saw him half a dozen times: once he was carrying tea; often he was helping a wounded man or lifting a stretcher. His clothes were now as creased and blood-stained as anyone else's, his fair skin pale from fatigue and perhaps horror as well, his voice rasping with emotion.
    Then at about four in the morning Wil Sloan came in, grey-faced, carrying one end of a stretcher on which Charlie Gee lay. His skin was almost blue, eyes sunken in their sockets, and a great scarlet streaming wound was in the pit of his belly where his genitals should have been. Wil had tried to pad it with all the bandages he could find, but everything was soaked through.
    "Help him!" he cried out, his voice close to a scream. "Help him! Sweet Jesus, do something!"
    The surgeon dropped the needle he was stitching with, and an orderly picked it up and carried on. Marie O'Day let out a moan of anguish and lurched forward to help the other bearer ease the stretcher on to the table.
    "All right, soldier," the surgeon said gently. "We'll look after you. We'll stop the worst of the pain, and stitch you up." He barely looked at the young VAD nurse who had come down from the other operating table. "Get water, plenty of pads, instruments," he told her.
    She stepped closer and saw the wound, and in a hideous moment of realization understood it. Her face went paper-white and she staggered backwards and crumpled to the floor.
    Joseph saw the movement but he was too slow to save her.
    Marie O'Day picked the girl up and dragged her to the corner, then went about collecting the things the surgeon had asked for.
    Joseph knew Charlie had understood at least some part of the meaning of his blinding pain, and the wrenching panicky horror in other people's faces. He tried to look at Joseph. His lips moved but he had not the strength to make any sound.
    Joseph thought of the girl who wrote to Charlie every day, and felt so sick he was afraid he might faint, just as the girl had done. But Wil Sloan was standing almost beside him, his eyes bright with tears, gulping to find enough air to sustain him, desperate, pleading without words, praying.
    What God would let this happen to a young man? He would be better dead. He will probably die anyway, even from shock and loss of blood, or from infection, but couldn't it have been without knowing what had happened to him?
    Joseph put out his hand and grasped Charlie's, holding on to it, feeling the fingers move a tiny fraction. "Hang on, Charlie," he said hoarsely. "We're with you."
    The surgeon